Misguided fool, and this is the end! To this
thou hast come with thy plotting and thy conspiring, thy lying and thy
boasting, consecrated banners and Pope's bulls, Agnus Deis and holy
waters, the blessing of all saints and angels, and thy Lady of the
Immaculate Conception! Thou hast called on the heavens to judge between
thee and us, and here is their answer! What is that in his hand, Amyas?
Give it me. A pastoral epistle to the Earl of Ormond, and all nobles of
the realm of Ireland; 'To all who groan beneath the loathsome tyranny
of an illegitimate adulteress, etc., Nicholas Saunders, by the grace
of God, Legate, etc.' Bah! and this forsooth was thy last meditation!
Incorrigible pedant! Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni!"
He ran his eye through various other documents, written in the usual
strain: full of huge promises from the Pope and the king of Spain;
frantic and filthy slanders against Elizabeth, Burghley, Leicester,
Essex (the elder), Sidney, and every great and good man (never mind
of which party) who then upheld the commonweal; bombastic attempts to
terrify weak consciences, by denouncing endless fire against those who
opposed the true faith; fulsome ascriptions of martyrdom and sanctity to
every rebel and traitor who had been hanged for the last twenty
years; wearisome arguments about the bull In Caena Domini, Elizabeth's
excommunication, the nullity of English law, the sacred duty of
rebellion, the right to kill a prince impenitently heretical, and the
like insanities and villainies, which may be read at large in Camden,
the Phoenix Britannicus, Fox's Martyrs, or, surest of all, in the
writings of the worthies themselves.
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